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Weber Number - Wikipedia

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39 views2 pages

Weber Number - Wikipedia

Uploaded by

Yousaf Raxa
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Weber number

The Weber number (We) is a dimensionless


number in fluid mechanics that is often useful in analysing
fluid flows where there is an interface between two different
fluids, especially for multiphase flows with strongly curved
surfaces.[1] It is named after Moritz Weber (1871–1951).[2] It
can be thought of as a measure of the relative importance of
the fluid's inertia compared to its surface tension. The quantity
is useful in analyzing thin film flows and the formation of
droplets and bubbles.
A splash after half a brick hits the water;
Mathematical expression the image is about half a meter across.
Note the freely moving airborne water
droplets, a phenomenon typical of
The Weber number may be written as:
high Reynolds number flows; the intricate
non-spherical shapes of the droplets
show that the Weber number is high.
Also note the entrained bubbles in the
body of the water, and an expanding ring
of disturbance propagating away from the
impact site.

where

is the drag coefficient of the body cross-section.


is the density of the fluid (kg/m3).
is its velocity (m/s).
is its characteristic length, typically the droplet diameter (m).
is the surface tension (N/m).

The modified Weber number,

equals the ratio of the kinetic energy on impact to the surface energy,

where
and

Applications
One application of the Weber number is the study of heat pipes. When the momentum flux in the
vapor core of the heat pipe is high, there is a possibility that the shear stress exerted on the liquid in
the wick can be large enough to entrain droplets into the vapor flow. The Weber number is the
dimensionless parameter that determines the onset of this phenomenon called the entrainment limit
(Weber number greater than or equal to 1). In this case the Weber number is defined as the ratio of the
momentum in the vapor layer divided by the surface tension force restraining the liquid, where the
characteristic length is the surface pore size.

References

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